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SLOVENIA HIGHLIGHTS

Published: August 14, 2005

To the Editor: ''The Old Europe and the New, Still in Balance'' (Next Stop: Ljubljana, July 31) was an excellent introduction to Ljubljana.

As a part-time expat in Slovenia who does research on national identity issues there, I would like any potential traveler to this delightful little country to know that it offers much more than Ljubljana.

Slovenia is essentially a suburban country, where city dwellers identify with small villages or even commute from those villages in order to maintain a decided rural character that Slovenes place as a cornerstone to their identity as a people. With that in mind, I would invite any potential visitor to go out into the countryside of Slovenia and experience something beyond the terminus of the train station.

No better way to do this exists than to fill one's stomach at the traditional Slovenian gostilna, a gasthaus-style restaurant that offers local renditions of Slovenia's decidedly varied cuisine. My suggestions would be Gostilna Grad in Tacen and Gostilna Mihelic in Ribnica.

Toby Martin Applegate
Brooklyn, N.Y.

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